WEBVTT

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The crew was trying to shut off artesian
water.

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While seating casing, the manager reported
two surges of oil, gas and

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water powerful enough to force the drillers
away from their work.

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Some oil was caught after the flow
subsided.

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The provincial mining report for nineteen
fifteen printed a letter from

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the manager of the Flathead Oil Syndicate’s
operations.

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It is an operator’s account, reproduced by
the government, rather than

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an independent production audit.

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The report then turns from excitement to
equipment trouble.

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The available casing was described as
light. Another water flow appeared

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after a little more drilling. The crew
pulled the casing and tried to

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reset it. A bottom-hole packer failed to do
its job.

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During another attempt to pull the casing,
it separated.

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The well was shut down pending heavier
casing and another packer.

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In the provincial report for nineteen oh
three, the mineralogist

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described a visit to the Big Oil Spring on
Sage Creek.

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The oil was difficult to locate until its
smell gave it away.

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Dark green oil floated on pools near a
water spring.

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But the appearance was deceptive. The pools
looked as though they

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contained much more oil than could actually
be collected.

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The investigator described laying cloth
over the surface, soaking up oil

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and water, wringing it into a container,
and separating the two.

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That is an extraordinary image: a future
petroleum prospect being

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sampled with a cloth.

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And this was never an empty landscape
waiting for oilmen to discover it.

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BC Parks describes the established routes
used by Ktunaxa people through

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this mountain country. The drilling chapter
came much later than that

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history.

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The geology made the surface evidence
especially puzzling.

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The exposed rocks were hard and compact.
Early investigators saw shale,

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slate, quartzitic rocks and carbonate beds.
They did not see an obvious,

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thick, porous oil sand beside every seep.

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The nineteen oh three report explained an
emerging answer:

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large thrust faults could place older rocks
above much younger

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formations. Oil might have come from deeper
rocks and migrated upward

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into fractures in the overlying mountain
mass.

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Think of a stack of pages pushed sideways
until one thick packet rides

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over another. The page on top is no longer
a reliable guide to the age

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of the page immediately beneath it. In a
thrust belt, a drill can pass

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through old rock and eventually enter
younger rock below a fault.

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Local heritage accounts place Akamina
Number One in nineteen oh seven

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and give a depth of about twelve hundred
feet.

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The provincial geological compilation is
less tidy. It lists the Royal

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Canadian Oil Company Number One, probably
the same well as Akamina

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Number One, as nineteen oh eight or
nineteen oh nine, with a total depth

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of three hundred and eighty-three metres.

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Its entry records a reported oil-bearing
interval at one hundred and

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eighty-two metres, a second reported oil
zone near total depth, and

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tools lost in the hole. It also records
that other geologists discounted

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the favourable reports. Number Two is
listed at approximately one

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hundred and eighty metres, again with lost
tools.

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The dates remain uncertain. The historical
compilation itself warns

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about possible duplicate well names and
conflicting drilling years.

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We should not polish that uncertainty into
a precise anniversary we

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cannot defend.

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A cable-tool rig repeatedly lifts and drops
a heavy cutting assembly.

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Broken rock and fluid are removed with a
bailer.

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If equipment remains downhole, the drilling
problem becomes a recovery

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problem: can you engage what is left, free
it, and bring it back?

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In nineteen fourteen, geologist Ralph
Arnold spent eight days

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investigating the district. His report,
published by the province the

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following year, is valuable because it
mixes encouragement with

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skepticism.

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He described three approaches to the
exploration country:

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from Belton in Montana, from Corbin to the
north, and from the Oil City

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direction. He considered the Belton route
the best available, but said

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it was suitable for wagons and pack animals
rather than automobiles.

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Arnold was interested in the Sage
Creek–Kishinena anticline, an arch in

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the strata along which seeps occurred. He
thought there were plausible

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places to drill there. At Akamina, however,
he described the wells

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associated with Gloyn in a syncline, a
downward fold, and doubted

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reports of significant oil.

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He also described an oil-bearing Sage Creek
well that had never been

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properly tested. He would not assign it a
dependable capacity from

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appearance alone.

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The manager reported that Number Three had
reached nine hundred and

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seventy feet in badly broken bluish-grey
limestone. He believed the

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drill was still in the overthrust
formation, with more of that section

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below.

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The sequence is specific. Fresh water had
been cased off at seven

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hundred and fifteen feet. Twenty feet
deeper, a whitish limestone

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carried a strong petroleum odour. The rock
became darker and somewhat

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grainy, and oil was reported.

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At around eight hundred feet, drilling
stopped to weld the stem.

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When work resumed, the crew recovered oil
with the bailer.

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According to the letter, a few runs filled
a fifty-four-gallon drum

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about two-thirds full.

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Then the well went deeper. By nine hundred
and seventy feet, the

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reported influx included larger quantities
of water, oil and gas.

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The manager wanted to evaluate the upper
oil-bearing interval.

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The account says material below the
eight-hundred-foot level was

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cemented off, and a pump and storage tanks
were ordered from Pittsburgh.

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The plan was to pump continuously for two
weeks.

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The drillers estimated two to ten barrels a
day.

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The manager added four words that deserve
to survive the century:

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“only test will tell.”

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That test was a plan in the letter.

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The letter does not establish that the test
achieved the estimated rate.

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It records what the operator wanted to
determine.

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The same letter describes Number Two, also
called the Davenport well.

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This is a Flathead operation at Sage Creek.

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It is not Akamina Number Two, even though
the repeated numbering makes

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the stories easy to mix up.

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The practical difficulty is vivid enough.
Water entry complicated the

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evaluation. The equipment needed to isolate
it was failing.

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Replacement material was not sitting on a
nearby service truck.

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The manager expected the pump, tanks and
casing to reach Belton, then be

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freighted into camp after the first snow.
The operation had stocked

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provisions, coke and horse feed to get
through the seasonal period of

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bad roads.

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Here, snow was part of the supply plan.

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A mechanical failure could be tied to an
entire transport season.

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The well’s next decision depended on rock,
steel, weather, money, and

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the condition of a trail through the
mountains.

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The early campaigns did not establish the
lasting commercial oilfield

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their backers hoped for. Later drilling
revisited the region, and modern

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work investigated very different objectives
beneath the Lewis thrust.

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The old seep hunt became part of a much
longer effort to understand a

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difficult mountain petroleum system.

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The equipment also acquired a second life.
The Fernie Derrick Society

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describes the recovery of metal components
in nineteen eighty-four.

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Local preservation accounts describe the
later work that created and

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maintained the roadside landmark. That
heritage history has its own

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chronology; recovery and reconstruction
should not automatically be

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treated as the same event.

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When you next pass the derrick at Fernie,
imagine the distance between

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that landmark and the remote holes whose
metal it preserves.

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Then imagine the larger distance between
finding oil and proving an

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oilfield.